Ethereum Activity Surges Amid Layer-2 Networks, but Spam Concerns Linger

On January 16, Ethereum's daily active addresses briefly surpassed 1.3 million, according to Token Terminal data, marking a significant rebound from its Layer-2 scaling networks like Arbitrum and OP Mainnet. This surge follows the December Fusaka upgrade, which reduced transaction fees, making on-chain activity more affordable, particularly for stablecoin transactions. However, analysts warn that the increase in active addresses may not reflect genuine user demand. A substantial portion of the growth is linked to address poisoning attacks, where attackers send small "dust" transfers to millions of wallets, inflating metrics artificially. Security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov noted that approximately two-thirds of new addresses during peak activity received dust as their first stablecoin transaction, indicating malicious activity rather than organic adoption. The attack has resulted in over $740,000 in confirmed losses, primarily affecting a small number of victims. While lower fees have revived on-chain activity, they also enable abuse, skewing headline metrics. The takeaway is that while Ethereum usage is not fake, it requires contextual analysis to distinguish between legitimate activity and spam-driven inflation.